The apex court wants the Centre’s response on why the school prayer in KVs should be allowed, because government- aided schools aren’t supposed to propagate any religion.

The SC posed this question to the Centre as it agreed to hear a public interest litigation which says that the school prayer in KVs propagates Hindu religion, and therefore should not be allowed, because KVs are government-run schools.

A bench comprising of Justice Rohinton F Nariman and Navin Shah issued notices to the Centre as well as the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sanghatan. “It is a very important constitutional issue,” said Justice Nariman while issuing the notice.

As per the petition, “all the students irrespective of their faith and belief have to perform the prayer in a respective manner by closing their eyes and folding their hands.”

The petitioner questions if an institution funded by the state can propagate any religion. He also says that this is in violation of the Constitution, as the Constitution permits a citizen to follow their religion, and also guarantees freedom of speech.

“This practice creates a lot of obstacles in developing a Scientific Temperament among the students as the whole idea of God and Religious Faith is given immense priority,” Veenayak writes in the petition.

“The above prayer is being enforced throughout the country in all Kendra Vidyalaya. As a result, parents and children of the minority communities as well as Atheist and others who do not agree with this system of Prayer such as Agnostics, Sceptisists, Rationalists and others would find the imposition of this prayer constitutionally impermissible,” the petition adds.

The PIL filed by an advocate alleges that school prayers in the Kendriya Vidyalaya schools propagate Hinduism, which should not be allowed as they are run by the government bound by the Constitution, which is secular.

“All the students irrespective of their faith and belief, have to compulsorily attend the morning assembly and recite the prayer,” the petitioner said.

The apex court has now sent a notice to the Central govt, seeking to know if the 1,094 schools that are run by the Central govt promote a particular religion and violate the constitution.

The constitution of India, it may be noted, allows the citizens to follow religion of one’s choice or remain an atheist. Article 28 of the Constitution says “No religious instruction shall be provided in any educational institution wholly maintained out of State funds.”

“It is a very important constitutional issue,” The Hindustan Times quoted a bench headed by Justice RF Nariman as saying.

In May last year, the apex court rejected a petition seeking to direct the Centre, states and union territories to make Hindi compulsory for students of class I-VIII across the country to promote unity and national integration.

“In order to promote fraternity, assuring dignity of individual and unity and national integration, study of Hindi should be compulsory for all the students of I-VIII standard through the country,” the plea by Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, Delhi BJP spokesperson said.

There are 1,125 KVs in India and three KVs abroad, as per 2015 numbers. There are approximately 11 lakh students enroled in these schools.

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday raised concerns over the homeless people not getting benefits of social welfare schemes and questioned how could they get Aadhaar card made in the absence of a permanent address.
This comes at a time when the Centre is making all-out efforts to convince the court that linking of Aadhaar to various social welfare schemes was for the benefit of the people.A bench of Justices Madan B Lokur and Depak Gupta said that lakhs of homeless people would be deprived of getting benefits of schemes and they would continue to languish if governments insisted for Aadhaar. “It means that they are not-existent for the governments,” the bench said when it was told that permanent address was must for people to get Aadhaar.

Additional solicitor general Tushar Mehta sought time to take instructions from the UDAI. He, however, told the bench that many urban homeless people had permanent address in rural areas and they became homeless after shifting to cities and they could get benefits of schemes after getting Aadhaar.

The apex court passed the remarks while hearing a PIL on lack of shelter homes for urban homeless people. The court decided to constitute a committee in all states and Union Territories for supervising construction of shelter homes. It asked the Centre and the petitioner to provide a list of people could be entrusted the task to monitor construction of shelter homes in states.

As per 2011 census there are 17, 73,040 homeless people in India – 52.9 % in urban areas and 47.1% in rural areas.

A supreme Court appointed panel headed by a former Delhi high court judge projected a very grim picture for urban homeless people saying that more than 90 per cent of them had no roof over their heads as state governments have pathetically failed in setting up shelter homes. The three-member committee headed by Justice (Retired) Kailash Gambhir in its report on the state of affairs of shelter homes in different states and said that governments were not using the funds released by the Centre for construction of shelter homes and homeless people in urban centres were forced to live in roadside, railway platforms and under flyovers.

Additional solicitor general ANS Nadkarni, appearing for the Centre, suggested the court to appoint a committee in each states under a retired high court judge to monitor the implementation of the scheme. “Considering the length and breadth of the country and the number of sanctioned shelters as of now being more than 1200, it may not be possible for a central committee to monitor the progress effectively. It is therefore prayed that the committees may be constituted in each states and UTs,” he said.

The bench said in a lighter vein that if retired judges were appointed then people would criticise court’s order and would say that it was granting post retirement benefits to judges. It, however, agreed to examine Centre’s plea to ensure better monitoring of the scheme.

NULM was launched by Centre in 2013 with a laudable objective to provide shelter to homeless people in urban areas and over the years more than Rs 2000 crore were allocated but the homeless continue to languish on streets with no roof over their head.

By denying basic services, Aadhaar is doing a disservice to the very people whose interests it’s supposed to protect

Aadhaar, a 12-digit unique identity number issued to all Indian residents and based on their biometric and demographic data, is in news due to a huge data leak. This has raised the issue of its possible misuse and is a major security breach. Initially conceived as a system of identification and verification, Aadhaar is increasingly becoming riddled with issues of exclusion, privacy, and implementation loopholes, especially when it becomes mandatory for accessing services.

Systemic Exclusion of the Aam Aadmi

Exclusions can be systemic — where the system fails, computers and scanners don’t work etc, and people are denied services even when they have cards. Or they can be due to an oversight in registering people with disabilities who may not be able to give requisite biometrics. Similarly, migrants maybe left out for not having fixed addresses.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly clarified that Aadhaar cannot be made mandatory for accessing services and entitlements like MNREGA and pensions. Later, it permitted voluntary use of Aadhaar for most such schemes including the PDS, yet the ground reality remains very different and exclusions abound.

The issue of Aadhaar exclusions caught mainstream attention with the tragic death of 11-year-old Santoshi Kumari from Jharkhand who died of starvation. Santoshi’s family was denied food rations from the Public Distribution System (PDS) as their Aadhaar was not linked to their ration card. Another death, that of a rickshaw puller called Baijnath Ravidas, followed. This was also due to hunger as his family did not have either ration card or an Aadhaar.

It emerged that the state government had passed an order that led 11 lakh ration cards being cancelled because the cardholders had not furnished their Aadhaar numbers. The order has since been retracted.

ABBA is a two-step procedure, in addition to the scheme card linked to Aadhaar, the beneficiaries have to authenticate their biometrics through fingerprint and iris scans. The process is easier said than done. Either computers or scanners don’t work or the Internet connection fails.

Even if glitches are smoothened, the system is not fool proof as Sajida Begum, a 65-year-old leprosy patient in Bengaluru, realised when she was informed that her pension would be stopped since she doesn’t have the required biometrics upon having lost her fingers and eyesight. Leprosy patients everywhere are facing similar problems and there is no clarity on how they can register for this unique ID.

The problem in accessing legal rights and entitlements is not limited to any region nor is unique to any particular scheme. Children are being denied Right to Education as the Delhi government has made Aadhaar compulsory for school admissions. While the move is to ensure that ghost children are not enrolled on paper and duplication is avoided, activists contend that this has led to a drop in enrolment and economically weaker sections are now being forced to move to private schools.

The worst hit are the children of poor migrant families who do not have fixed addresses. Moreover, scholarship schemes and mid-day meals (often the primary reason for children to attend school) are linked to Aadhaar, and if children are unable to furnish it in time they are denied even this.

Particularly worrying is the denial of health services in a country with an already poor public health record. National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), since 2015, has been asking the states to collect Aadhaar numbers of patients to avail antiretroviral therapy. It was supposed to ease the process of availing the services, however, concerns have emerged regarding privacy and data leaks.

Many patients fear that compulsory submission of Aadhaar card for medicines and ART could lead to the disclosure of their identity and cause social stigma. This is leading to many dropping out of treatment.

On the other hand, in some cases, exclusion is by default. For instance, TB patients were asked to submit Aadhaar numbers for monetary compensation to support nutrition and loss of work, but it is proving to be a long wait. The Ministry of Health is still to finalise the Direct Benefit Transfer Scheme, that transfers money to the account of patients registered with the government-run TB treatment programme.

Privacy is a concern in areas such as health, where data is sensitive and personal, and finance where data leaks may lead to fraud and losses.

Allegations About Violation of Human Rights

In other instances, Uttar Pradesh government has made it mandatory for patients to have Aadhaar cards to avail free ambulance service. In Mumbai, a pregnant woman was denied treatment at a maternity home due to the lack of an Aadhaar card. Aadhaar is now being made mandatory for death certificates in the states of Jammu and Kashmir, Meghalaya and Assam.

In November, following the denial of an abortion to a woman in Chandigarh due to her not having an Aadhaar, prompted a group of 62 public health organisations and individuals to issue a statement on “gross violation of human rights due to the mandatory linking of Aadhaar to health and allied social security schemes”.

Meanwhile, the government has been pushing the citizens to link their Aadhaar to services such as mobile phones and credit cards and other portfolios, documents and IDs like PAN card, mutual fund folio, insurance policies etc. even though deadlines have been extended till 31 March, 2018.

The Supreme Court will also hear petitions seeking to limit the scope of Aadhaar first and foremost about deadlines, with more in depth discussion around privacy and data leaks perhaps later.

India is already struggling with high hunger and malnutrition, poverty, poor health services, and low literacy. Legislations like National Food Security Act, Right to Education, MNREGA, and government schemes targeting the vulnerable and marginalised, if properly implemented, can be transformative. In such a scenario, Aadhaar should act as a facilitator rather than a tool for excluding the beneficiaries. It will be a travesty if a virtual ID service is able to deprive poor of right to decent life and well-being.

Apex court not only needs to undo the grave error of Koushal versus Naz judgment of 2013, but also bring the country out of a majoritarian pit.

ANGSHUKANTA CHAKRABORTY

Indian judiciary works in strange ways. In a matter of nine years since 2009, we have seen the Delhi High Court strike down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code in an emphatic and expansive judgment, exploding the horizons of sexual autonomy, individuality, diversity and personal liberty, only to be overturned in a most unconstitutional manner by the Supreme Court in 2013. The December 11, 2013 judgment, also known as the Koushal versus Naz Foundation, put the lid back on a deep majoritarian pit which condemned many, once again, to a life of quasi-criminality, of unlawful sex “against the order of nature”, forcing many to retreat into shells of closeted sexual otherness, a horrible place deprived of joyous self-expression that heterosexuals are allowed.

Those who had fused the personal with the political in this collective battle for liberty, dignity, equality and autonomy, many of them were given a rude jolt, not entirely out of step with the majoritarian miasma that was bubbling over. Many lived at odds with the law, with their everyday becoming a battle with a Victorian-era legal diktat encoded by the former subjugators, revolting against a Parliament that skirted the historic opportunity to frame a law decriminalising “sex against order of nature”, while a few legislators, like Shashi Tharoor, kept knocking at the incognito conscience of a lawmaking body devoid of its soul.

But the “pride marches” never stopped. Processions of love were carried out in many cities over the years. The sexual minorities, a strange nomenclature given the fluidity of sexuality, flowing from one to another like the very liquid of life, “asserted” themselves as “equals” — something puritanical homophobes like BJP MP Subramanian Swamy have always balked at. Orthodoxies from all quarters, from the Hindu religious bodies and trusts, to the Catholic Church, to Islamic bodies, were all united in their derision of difference.

Mumbai Pride Parade, 2016. [Photo: Reuters]

That sex can be various, sexual pleasure can be obtained without the heteronormative coda that many experience as a heavy iron fetter, that non-procreative sex is just as natural as any other, that orifices exist in the body only to be explored, that consenting human adults can kiss, penetrate, caress, touch, stroke, linger on, lavish upon, ravish, enjoy, be enjoyed, engage, have intercourse with, each other as they wished, any time, every time – this elementary life lesson eluded the gatekeepers of sexual dogma.

As “civilised” beings governed by law, humans at the receiving end of the legal stick have the hardest time. When personal liberty is construed to be at odds with social morality of a world, then deep inspections are required of the definition of morality that prefers to lock up individuals in silos of various predetermined identities – sexuality, nationality, religion, language, gender, race, caste, class. Any attempt to break free of these markers is construed as a challenge to the foundations of the society itself.

But what kind of a society feeds off the lifeblood of its individuals, specially those precious ones harbouring a little difference? That’s why constitutional morality was held as the supreme arbiter of such matters, and the Indian Constitution has been one stellar example of such a Bill of Rights that rose above petty sectarian morality, particularly the punitive instinct of the majoritarian morality, that cannot stand difference, that criminalises otherness, that betrays an entrenched insecurity about its idea of a nation, built of heterosexually reproducing child-bearing family units stuck together through shared prejudices.

It’s precisely thatshared prejudices that constitutional morality sheds a light upon, illuminating the corners of the heart, soul and mind with more knowledge, wisdom, framing just and inclusive laws, eliminating discrimination stop by stop, day by day. Hence, the Supreme Court’s decision to relook the validity of the Koushal versus Naz judgment is a baby-step to undo a great judicial error, that reinstated a law that has no place in a society of equal legal subjects. That majoritarian morality cast a deathly blow to the daily revolutions on the ground the day the Supreme Court pronounced the Koushal judgment, to the decades-long struggle to rid sexual difference of many taboos, free it/them from the chokehold of “straightness”, another misnomer, was obvious in the shocked and stunned and screaming resistance that immediately followed.

Chief Justice Dipak Misra has rightly echoed the privacy judgment of August 24, 2017, also known as Justice Puttaswamy versus Union of India, which termed the Koushal judgment as an example of “minimisrationale”, or the most constrictive and restrictive interpretation of the laws and the Constitution, keeping social morality above the sacrosanct morality of the Constitution. While the privacy judgment, with its “downpour of rainbow rights”, ensured that the days of Koushal were indeed numbered, the legal tangles and the ways of the Indian judiciary kept everyone guessing. When would it be that the Supreme Court acknowledge a gross error on its own part, and in the process, make an effort to bring India out of its majoritarian cesspool?

The transgender judgment of 2014 (also known as NALSA judgment) by the Supreme Court gave a much broader, fluid definition of gender, that would stem only from one’s own personal experience of it, and need not conforming with biological determinants like primary and secondary sexual organs, or appearance. This severance of gender from the jails of biology, giving it the freedom bounce of its own individual, mutable, diversity-affirming idea of self, liberating it from the tyranny of the male-female binary, was a great step forward, and also an acknowledgement of the insanity of jurisprudential hara-kiri in 2013.

Chief Justice Misra therefore quotes at length from the NALSA judgment, and clearly stating that “gender identity is one of the most fundamental aspects of life”. That “sexual orientation refers to an individual’s enduring physical, romantic and/or emotional attraction to another person… Each person’s self-defined sexual orientation and gender identity is integral to their personality and is one of the most basic aspects of self-determination, dignity and freedom…” Evidently, this was at odds, heavily so, with the Koushal judgment, with its narrow understanding of the Constitution, effectively writing off the sexual liberty of a “miniscule minority” so that the majoritarian madness can carry on unthreatened, unchallenged, un-illuminated.

While in 2014 the Supreme Court also agreed to hear a “curative petition” challenging the 2013 Koushal judgment, presently, the CJI bench heard a direct challenge to the constitutional validity of Section 377 that punishes “unnatural sex”. This is the Navtaj Singh Johar versus Union India, and the chief counsel for the petitioner is once again senior advocate Aravind Datar, also an integral force behind the brilliant privacy judgment. As legal scholar Gautam Bhatia points out, whether the constitution bench would club the curative petition with the Navtej Singh Johar case, or would treat them separately, still isn’t clear.

Moreover, the gravitas of the curative petition, accepted only four times since it was introduced in 2002 as the last remedial measure by the Supreme Court, would also acknowledge the decades-long struggle that the Naz Foundation, as well as other LGBTQ organisations, many NGOs, blogs, legal platforms like Lawyers Collective, among others had put in. It would vindicate the social revolutions happening all along, while the judiciary often slumbered or lumbered behind, horribly out of step with international standards of rights and liberties enjoyed by citizens in most countries.

Whatever may be the case, no matter what’s the exact course the Supreme Court takes, the destination is clear: striking down Section 377, and curing – at least legally – India of its acute homophobia. It’s only then that the likes of Subramanian Swamy or Baba Ramdev would think again before broadcasting their bigotry before a herd of equally prejudiced people. The ludicrous irony of Swamy and Ramdev espousing the good Hindu culture while spewing homophobia couldn’t be more pronounced. One look at our texts and architecture and temples and love manuals, and the panoply of possibilities — sexual, bodily, of pleasure carnal and spiritual, of the intimate and the physical, of love and loving — opens up, infinite as the universe itself.

And even if the past didn’t bear a frank testimony to sexual multitudes, the present should have been enough to ensure no one is denied liberty, equality, dignity, autonomy, privacy and freedom on account of an aspect of their selfhood — sexuality. Our wonderful Constitution is a Magna Carta of such rights for all, only to read with “maximisrationale”, or the most expansive reading of the constitutional spirit, fusing love and law like it should, like it must.

A Dalit woman sarpanch’s family in Balkonda mandal of Nizamabad, Telangana, has allegedly been socially boycotted for nearly two months following a land dispute with the Guridi Kapu Sangham, a caste association comprising Reddys.

Jakulla Mamatha, the sarpanch, alleged that the family isn’t receiving milk and people refuse to work on their land due to the Sangham’s diktat.

Her husband, Jakkula Rajanna alias Sungala Srinivas, said that the tiff between his family and the Sangham started some months ago when land records had to be renewed. He said that 11 acres of land belongs to the Dalits in the village, which they have used for decades now as grazing fields. However, when it was time for the records to be renewed, the Sangham claimed ownership of the land and tried to pressure people into signing documents to prove that it belonged to the organisation.

But he resisted this move and claims that this is the reason behind the social exclusion.

“This land belongs to us. My grandfather bought it from the Patels. We have adequate documents to prove this. But these people (the Sangham) claim the land belongs to them. They don’t have any document to substantiate their claim,” he told TNM.

Following this argument, the Sangham, headed by Mandal Parishad Vice-President Nagampeta Shekar Reddy, allegedly issued a diktat on October 29 last year to the villagers in Bussapoor telling them not to work in the fields owned by Rajanna and Mamatha, and asked people to stop socialising with the family.

“After this, tractor drivers refuse to plough our fields, our milk supply has been cut off, we’re prohibited from attending any village gatherings and, even if we do go out, no one talks to us,” says Rajanna.

The village purportedly has 150 Reddy families and 90 SC/ST families.

Rajanna also claimed that a similar diktat had been issued against the washermen’s community for hiking their payment from Rs 1,200 to Rs 1,500 three years ago.

Speaking to TNM, Nagampeta Shekar Reddy rubbished the charges of social boycott. “The dispute is between the Sangham and Rajanna. But he is painting it as a fight between the Dalits and Reddys,” he said.

“The land belongs to the Sangham and the villagers co-existed peacefully without any caste differences. Although the land belonged to the Sangham, they allowed Dalits to graze their cattle and sheep there without any objection. But Rajanna is trying to convert the land to his name and he knows he is powerful because his wife is the sarpanch,” Shekar claimed, adding that he possessed land documents to show proof of ownership.

However, Mamatha said that she was only sarpanch by name – the Reddys allegedly reined in her powers.

She has sought the District Collector’s intervention in the matter.

Nizamabad Collector, MRM Rao, was unavailable to comment on the issue.

The killings, the petition alleges, were carried out in 2015 and 2016 under the pretext of counter-insurgency operations in state’s Maoist-affected areas.

At a press conference in New Delhi on Tuesday, petitioners Suneeta and Munni Pottam said that on December 27, 2017, Bijapur’s superintendent of police MR Ahire had accused them of maligning the state police at the behest of the banned Communist Party of India (Maoist), and had threatened them with arrest when they approached him with a fresh complaint regarding another police encounter on December 21.

“On December 21, we heard a burst of gunfire near our village Korcholi,” Suneeta said. “When we rushed to the spot, we saw the police had killed someone and were dressing the body in a uniform. When the women raised an alarm, the police violently assaulted them,” she added.

The police has disputed these claims. “I don’t think the allegations are true,” said DM Awasthi, special DGP, anti-Naxal operations. “If anyone gives me a written complaint, I will surely investigate and action will be taken.”

2015 Encounter Case

In 2016, Suneeta and Munni filed a petition in the HC accusing the police of killing Sukku Kunjam, Kuhdami Ganga, Tati Pande, Manoj Hapka and Seetu Hemla in four separate encounters from November 2015 to August 2016. The petition also names Sodhi Sannu, a 10-year-old who disappeared during a police operation in Andri village on February 19, 2016 and hasn’t been found since.

A series of petitions are currently being heard by the apex court. On January 7, 2017, the National Human Rights Commission held the Chhattisgarh police responsible for rape, physical and sexual assault of 16 women in 2015-16. It is still recording statements of 18 other complainants.

A woman took to social media to share her ordeal after a man, who called her with a job offer, started asking her inappropriate questions and later harassing her. Her post aims to warn people who might fall prey to such fraud.

One of the positive aspects of free speech on social media and the widespread reach has been that women across the world have felt emboldened to share stories of being sexually harassed and assaulted, not only because there are so many others with similar stories, but as a means to not let those responsible get away with misbehaving. A Chennai resident Namya Baid did exactly that when she was contacted and then later harassed by a man, who had initiated a conversation by offering a job. Taking to Facebook, Baid decided to share her ordeal and how she dealt with it.

“I started recording the call after 3-4 minutes of the conversation because first few were general introduction. Also, because I did not want to miss out on any information. Then of course I started finding it fishy after he started asking for my waist size, my breast size,” said Baid when asked what made her record the call.

On being asked why she chose to put it all out on social media the 22-year-old said, “I have faced something like this earlier in my life and I could not really fight back. So this time I really wanted to. Also, of course to inform others.”

She started her post with a warning asking those around her to be careful before attending any phone calls. She then explained how she had recently started applying for jobs and one of her friends passed her contacts to people via multiple groups and one of the person misused her number. She then received a call from someone who claimed to be from Air France. Sceptical about the call, she recorded it from the very beginning. While the initial questions seemed basic, the ‘interview’ soon turned into something else. Read her complete post here:

Girls, and everyone around.

This is something serious. I don’t want anyone to go through this.

So please please be careful before attending any calls.

Recently I had started applying for jobs and a friend passed my contacts to people he knew.

Someone called me and claimed to be from Air France (+91 73566 88358) and the moment I started finding it fishy, I kept the call recording on.

He claimed to be from Air France, and asked basic questions.

Then my height, weight. It was fine till that. But then he asked my chest size and waist size.

Then he said this was first round, now someone will call for second round. He called at 5:20 and went till 5:55 where he explained the various rounds, job description and what not.

At 6, he itself called for second round (he said another person will, but he himself did). And then said I’ll have a WhatsApp video call. Asked me to be alone in a room so that no one’s there to help me. Asked me the color of my shirt and pants.

He himself called me on video call with the number +919495771521 claiming to be another person (Dr. Manish Rao, he mentioned) and then on video call, he asked me to show my height and weight. He asked me to show my tattoos. He asked to then show my stomach, I was uncomfortable and denied doing so. He asked me to wear a t-shirt and do so. Then he asked me to take off my innerwear but keep my tshrit on and stuffs.

He clearly mentioned that my nipple bulge is to be seen. I found it weird. Cut the call.

And I again got a call from the previous number and he acted like he’s a different person and said that the doctor told him I’m uncomfortable.

My friend was with me throughout and both of us could easily find that the voice was same and when we questioned about it, he changed the thing and cut the call.

Today, when I confronted him, he tells me things like “what he recorded on call was enough”, “Namya, you’re gone”

For a fact, I know that there’s nothing he can do because I didn’t do anything he asked on the call.

Girls, take this as a lesson and please please please be safe.

She also shared screenshots of her text messages with the person:

(Source: Namya Baid/Facebook)(Source: Namya Baid/Facebook)(Source: Namya Baid/Facebook)(Source: Namya Baid/Facebook)(Source: Namya Baid/Facebook)(Source: Namya Baid/Facebook)(Source: Namya Baid/Facebook)However, the harasser did not stop even after being confronted by Baid . He continued to text and even tried to scare and threaten her. It is quite common for both men and women to receive such fraudulent calls, texts and mails offering high paid jobs and other perks. While, Baid did not fall prey to this man’s tactics and manipulation, there are many who do and end up in trouble. This lady’s post should be an eye opener for people on social media and surely a lesson for those who tend to fool others.

Baid posted this incident on social media on January 3 and since then it has gone viral and received a lot of attention. She hasn’t received any texts or calls from that person thereafter,http://indianexpress.com/article/trending/trending-in-india/chennai-woman-harassment-warns-others

The right wing vigilantes in Dakshina Kannada are keeping busy, and their latest targets are two student leaders – a Muslim man and a Hindu woman. The vigilantes are circulating WhatsApp messages of the two young people, ‘warning’ the man – Hamza Kinya – against ‘roaming around on bike with our Hindu girls in broad daylight.’

But this time, the vigilantes have bitten off more than they can chew. On Tuesday, the 20-year-old woman – Madhuri Bolar – filed a complaint at the cyber crime cell of Mangaluru city police.

For days, the picture of Madhuri Bolar along with her friends – one of them a Muslim – has been making rounds on certain WhatsApp groups. The picture was accompanied by a message in Kannada: “Hanma Kinya is roaming around on bike with our Hindu girls in broad daylight… If he is further seen roaming around with Hindu girls, Hindu organisations must reply to him (act on him.)”

Message and photos circulated in right wing WhatsApp groups.

According to Madhuri, both the image and message were out of context, and it came to her as a rude shock. “The selfie was taken almost a year ago, when all of us were travelling in a bus to a camp. It was uploaded by one of my friends. However, the rumour mongers did not mention that; neither did they mention that along with Hamza and me, there were Suhas Adiga and Ganesh Bolar as well in the photo,” Madhuri, who is also the District Secretary of Student Federation of India (SFI) said.

Madhuri further added that as Hamza was the Joint Secretary of district SFI, he was required to travel to such camps with other office bearers including herself.

“Since their (vigilante groups’) other tactics and smear campaign have failed to have their effect on us, they are now trying to bring us down morally by levelling such baseless allegations,” she said.

Not to be bogged-down by her harassers, Madhuri along with her mother Bharati Bolar, filed a complaint at the Mangaluru Police Commissionerate. In her complaint, Madhuri has identified at least six-WhatsApp groups and their users, and has named two men and one woman, who were allegedly spreading misinformation and causing her psychological trauma.

Speaking to TNM, Madhuri’s mother Bharati Bolar said that, as it is, teenagers in Dakshina Kannada are constantly harassed by religious vigilante groups. “On Sunday, a young girl at Mudigere even committed suicide after she was harassed by vigilantes for talking to men outside her religion. This should stop. I will support my daughter in her complaint and have insisted that the police act against the perpetrators,” Bharati said.

A member of the CPI (M)-affiliated Beedi workers’ organisation, Bharati also said that parents must stand by their children if they are victims of such harassment.

Police Commissioner TR Suresh, who heard the mother and daughter duo, forwarded the complaint to the city’s cyber crime branch. It is learnt that the case has been registered at Pandeshwara Police station limits.

In Dakshina Kannada, that is still reeling from the brutal murders of Deepak Rao and Abdul Basheer by communal elements, the religious vigilantes have stepped up their ‘policing’ efforts. Last week, a minor girl was targeted at the district administration run Pilikula Nisargadhama, after she was spotted in a picnic group that included a boy from another religion.

An appeal was also issued asking Hindus to visit Hanuman temples and not ‘mazars’

In a bizarre statement, Bajrang Dal leaders in western Uttar Pradesh have asked Hindus to purchase guns and not mobiles to protect Hindu religion as “evil forces persists in India”. An appeal was also issued asking Hindus to visit Hanuman temples and not `Mazars’.

The statement came from Balraj Singh Dungar, regional coordinator of Bajrang Dal, who said during a Sant Samaj Sammelan in Meerut that Hindu dharma was in peril because evil forces were raising their heads. “If you are a true Hindu, take a vow to protect your religion. So, instead of purchasing a new mobile, purchase a gun,” he said in the meeting.

He did not specify who the evil forces were but talked about “love jihad” and how this practice was spreading its tentacles.

Dungar said that all Hindu Gods and Goddesses have arms to protect the society and religion from evils. “If Hindu Gods have arms, what’s wrong if we (Hindus) get arms and ammunition? These are not for attack but to defend ourselves,” he said.

In the same meet, the Maha-mandaleshar of Sankat Mochan Hanuman Sri Balaji and Sri Shani Dham Peeth, Mahendra Das, said Hindus should not visit `mazars’. They should admire the divine power of Lord Hanuman and visit Hanuman Temples.

The statement of Bajrang Dal came at a time when the Vishwa Hindu Parishad has launched a massive enrolment campaign where volunteers were enrolled in Bajrang Dal at special camps held across Uttar Pradesh.

At present, there are around 10 million active Bajrang Dal members in the country and the target was to increase it to 40 million. In UP alone, the target of the Sangh Parivar is to enrol 1.2 million new Bajrang Dal members.

The VHP’s department secretary, (Awadh Prant), Devendra Mishra, told this reporter that the criteria for new membership is that the members should be in the age group of 15 to 35 years and swear by the ideology of ‘Seva, Suraksha, Sanskar’.

The issue of ‘ghar vapsi’, protection of Hindu community and opposition to ‘love jihad’, besides service to the poor and downtrodden were some of the prime activities of Bajrang Dal, he said.

Clarifying that Muslim youths are not enrolled in the Bajrang Dal as the Sangh Parivar has separate wing for them called Rashtriya Muslim Manch, Mishra said Christians won’t be accepted.

Mishra said that the Bajranj Dal was yet to commence its much-publicised Trishul Diksha, which was stopped in 2006. “Every year, in the months of May-June, firearms training camp are organised in different parts of the state. The first camp was held in Ayodhya while in 2017, the camp was held in Hardoi,” he said.

HIGHLIGHTS

Justice Singh’s harsh criticism came in the context of the ED seeking to attach properties belonging to Naik

In the last 10 years, the ED has done nothing to attach Asaram’s properties, but in the case of Naik, I can see the ED working with quite a bit of speed,” said Justice Singh

When the ED lawyer said that Naik instigated youths through his speeches, Justice Singh pointed out the ED did not produce any prima facie evidence or statements from “such misguided youths” as to how these speeches pushed them to commit illegal acts.

New Delhi: After NIA suffered an embarrassment with quashing of its Red Corner Notice request by the Interpol, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday was pulled up by a judicial tribunal over its investigation against controversial Islamic preacher Zakir Naik.

“I can name 10 babas who have properties worth more than Re 10,000 crore each and they are facing criminal cases. Have you acted against even one of them? What have you done against Asaram Bapu?” it asked the counsel for the ED.

Raising questions whether ED was being selective in acting against Naik, the Tribuna’s chairman observed that the agency seems to have done nothing in the last 10 years about confiscating properties of Asaram but looked to act a lot quicker in this case.

The Tribunal grilled the ED’s counsel over the grounds as to why the properties required to be attached when the chargesheet had not made out appropriate scheduled offences.

When the lawyer said that Naik instigated youths through his speeches, Justice Singh pointed out the ED did not produce any prima facie evidence or statements from “such misguided youths” as to how these speeches pushed them to commit illegal acts.

“Have you recorded anybody’s statement as to how they were influenced by these speeches? Your chargesheet does not even mention how these speeches played any role in a terror attack in Dhaka in 2015,” he said.

Justice Singh then said that it appeared the ED, for the sake of its own convenience, ignored 99 per cent of these speeches and relied upon only 1 per cent.

“Have you read the speeches which form part of your chargesheet? I have heard many of these speeches and I can tell you that so far I haven’t come across anything objectionable,” the judge told the ED’s lawyer.

The Tribunal then ordered a “status quo”, thereby stopping the ED from taking possession of a school in Chennai and a commercial property in Mumbai.

The ED has already attached Naik’s three properties, including these two, but the judge said the agency cannot now proceed with the physical possession. The Tribunal then adjourned the matter to hear at length about the validity of the attachment proceedings.

Naik’s appeal has stated that he was not even served notices before properties were attached and that the chargesheet made out no such offence that warranted confiscation of his properties.

Last month, the NIA had to face embarrassment when the Interpol quashed its request, made through the Ministry of External Affairs, for issuance of a Red Corner Notice.

Interpol had called the NIA’s request a “premature” plea, noting the request had been made without a chargesheet being filed against Naik whereas the purpose of a red notice is to facilitate a country to seek the extradition of an accused charged for an offence, not a suspect merely under investigation.

A Red Corner Notice would have restricted international travel for Zakir Naik, who has been changing his base frequently after the NIA moved the Interpol for an international arrest warrant against him